Progress Update on my small-scale research project

Progress Update on my small-scale research project

 

The focus films that I have been researching for the question I am studying on for my small-scale research project include ‘Star Wars’ (George Lucas, 1977), ‘Terminator 2: Judgement Day’ (James Cameron, 1991), Jurassic Park (Steven Spielberg, 1993), and ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest’ (Gorve Verbinksi, 2006). For ‘Star Wars’, it was the film that the company was founded for, and this film can give one an idea about the special effects that the company made for the film and how complex these effects would appear. As a result, the film and the making of it can be used to give us an idea about the company’s formation and how they were able to achieve the effects for the film, and also I can study the critical reception that the film and its effects received when it was first release, and also look at the current contemporary views of it.

 

I chose ‘Terminator 2: Judgement Day’ as one of my supporting films because some of the film’s scenes and elements such as the miniature sets for the nuclear holocaust and the computer-generated work for the antagonist show the technological advancements the company made and therefore pushed up the limits of computer-generated imagery. There are slightly similar reasons as to why I also chose ‘Jurassic Park’ since it uses a complex digital blue-screen matting process for the dinosaur creatures, since again this film had further pushed up the limits for digital effects, and both these films in common show the company’s transition into the ‘digital era’. For ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest’, the film is notable for the advanced use of motion capture technology and the way the computer-generated imagery was applied, especially for the character of Davy Jones and his men, and also this film can be used to compare how much technology has changed since the release of ‘Star Wars’.

 

The question I am studying for this project is ‘What was the subsequent impact of Industrial Light and Magic since Star Wars?’, where I am studying the way Industrial Light and Magic has created the technology and special effects for the films made by the company and how they were able to achieve these complex challenges. I am also studying how these effects and technologies have impacted the film industry and how it has impacted the audiences of these films, and also study the reception towards the effects made for the films and the films themselves.

 

What I am hoping to achieve throughout this research is to find a good and precise answer to the question I have proposed, finding out the necessary information regarding the impact the company has had on both the industry and film audiences, and hopefully I will also prove how it has impacted the industry and audiences.

 

I have been using two YouTube videos (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdAEYLWMY3A, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzRdpYBrOJM) and an online review (http://www.vaughnonmovies.com/2009/12/terminator-2-judgment-day/) for my online sources, followed by using two book-related sources (Glintenkamp, Pamela, Industrial Light & Magic: The Art of Innovation, 1st November 2011; Media Department, Central Sussex College (Haywards Heath Campus), Industrial Light & Magic: Creating the impossible) as my secondary research sources so that I can further study the technologies made and the impact it has had on the industry and audiences.